How conservative were your calculations? 4 points is a little too close for comfort - that's one swimmer getting out-touched

Who do you think UM will have in the 400 relay? Same 4 as at Big Tens? Those 4 guys are swimming as well as any on the squad.

Funk's 200 breast and Kamiya in the 200 back could be ley for MIchigan ... if they can outswim their seeds and score some points in those events, that would be huge. Wojciechowski hasn't had much of a meet, but we sure could use a big 200 fly out of him.

I was conservative but not overly so. I looked to see how Michigan and Cal swimmers prelim swims compared to their seed times. Then converted their seed times to estimated prelim times then see what that time would have placed last year. Basically Michigan added about 0.7% to their times and Cal dropped 1% from their seed times. That is a pretty healthy drop and might not be sustainable.

the number of Cal swimmers for tonigh in the "A" finals and the "B" finals, between the 4 individual non-1650 events, Michigan is in really good shape, between their standing lead, presumed huge advantage in the 1650 and presumed advantage in the relay?

On a related note, any idea how Cal did in the morning session? I'm getting Michigan's results through the twitter-thing, but the live results aren't being updated for me.

They have completed the individual events. The 400 Free Relay is coming up in about 5-10 mintues.

Cal put 1 swimmer in the A Final for the 200 Back, 1 swimmer in the A Final for the 100 Free

2 in the A final, 1 in the B for the 200 Breast; 1 in the A and 1 in the B for the 200 Fly.

Michigan is in absolutely fantastic shape right now. If we ignore the 400 Free Relay and the 1650 (where UM should score and Cal should not). Michigan leads 396- 386.5 (assuming prelim results hold). UM should score big points in the 1650 and should have a better relay.

UM takes the top seed in the 400 free relay. I think they can smell it. Cal doesn't make it back for the A final. If Michigan can take 30 points from the 1650 (and they can), all they will have to do is finish the evening swimming legally. NO DQs and its theirs.

Cal is swimming out of their heads; Michigan, for the most part, is swimming at or near their seed times. It's interesting to see the coache's different philosophies in that Michigan has more talent and is deeper than Cal, but becasue Cal tapered perfectly for this meet and have dudes swimming into points who were nowhere near that with their seed times.

The 1650 is key. As ehatch stated, if Michigan just holds their seeds in the 1650, we should be up 50 going into the remaining events. The remaining events should break down like this:

After the 1650, we will lose points (20 at most) in the 200 back as Cal has an A finalist and Michigan will score nothing.

In the 100free Cal has an A finalist seeded above Michigan's A finalist (on paper we would lose a few points), but we have a B finalist and Cal doesn't, so it should be a wash. We should still be up about 30 points.

Worse case scenario in the 200breast could have us lose 27 points as Cal placed 2 in the A final and 1 in the B final. If Cal goes 2-3 (they won't beat the 1 seed), Funk takes 8th and Cal dude wins the B final, we lose 27 points. So, we should still be ahead regardless, but if it shakes out like that, we would be up about 5 points.

We should gain points in the 200 fly. We are seeded first in the A final, but the Cal dude should win it (he easily won the 100 fly). However, we have 2 A finalists to their 1 so we will outpoint them. We also have a B finalist and Cal does not, so we will gain points.

Niether team has divers, so, yeah.

So, like ehatch said, we are in the A final of the 400 free relay and Cal is in the B final. As long as we don't DQ, we will outpoint them in the event and win the NC!

Thanks to ehatch for posting! Our swim team is incredible and has been for years.

Based on the prelims, it looks like a lock to me for the good guys. The most Cal can score is 133 points, assuming they finish at the top of every heat. The fewest points Michigan can score is 69, barring disqualifications. That would make the final Cal 434.5 - Mich 405, but that does not count the 1650 and is absolute worst case in every race. More likely, Michigan stretches its lead and wins by 50+.

The earlier heats just ended, with the only Michigan swimmer participating, freshman Anders Nielsen, coming in 5th out of 28 (and bettering his time). Michigan has three swimmers in the final 8 tonight (those with highest qualifying times), so if the times hold, we should do pretty well. A Georgia swimmer in Nielsen's heat swam much faster than his qualifying time, so even if he and one or two others have times good enough to move into the top 8, Nielsen's time would be good enough for the top 16 (getting points) and the Cal swimmer most likely wouldn't.